Think your city is the nation’s worst for traffic? Well, if you happen to live in Los Angeles, California, you’re right, E3 Spark Plugs just learned. The most recent TomTom Traffic Index, the annual report detailing the cities around the world with the most traffic congestion, the City of Angels is downright devilish for rush hour drivers. In fact, West Coast cities dominated the top 10 list of most congested locales, but bustling metro areas in the South are close behind.
Researchers found that LA had an overall congestion level of 41 percent in 2015, a two-percent boost from 2014. Congestion is measured by extra time travelers spend on both highways and non-highways vs. free-flowing conditions any time of the day, but particularly during the morning and afternoon...

At face value, it was a minor fender-bender that caused minimal damage to the two vehicles involved. Yet, a 17-year-old girl, who was wearing her seatbelt and wasn’t speeding, is dead. On March 31, Huma Hanif, a high school senior with plans to study nursing after graduating in just a few months, rear-ended an SUV in her 2002 Honda. The slight impact proved just enough to cause the airbag to deploy and rupture, sending shrapnel flying through the car. One piece hit Hanif in the neck, severing her carotid artery.
As Fort Bend County Sheriff's Deputy Danny Beckwith told a reporter with Reuters, “Everybody should have walked away from this.”
As of the time of this writing, 14 automakers have recalled upward of 24 million vehicles involving some 28 million Takata air bag...

It’s a foregone fact – Formula 1 race cars are mind-bendingly fast. But just how fast? We typically see them racing against other F1 cars, so there’s not much of an apples-to-oranges comparison to show just what kind of freakish speed these machines are capable of – until now.
You might think that because of the sheer weight differences and the decidedly higher level of nimbleness, a badass motorcycle just might have an advantage over an F1 car. You’d be wrong. Miserably wrong. And North One television just proved it by pitting racers Guy Martin and David Coulthard against each other on the track – Martin on a Tyco BMW Superbike and Coulthard in a 2012 Red Bull RB8. To make things interesting, Coulthard’s win depended upon his racing four...

Hey, racing fanatics – If you’re a fan of stock car driver Will Kimmel and his team, mark your calendars. Kimmel Racing is throwing a Fan Appreciation Party Friday, April 22, 6-9pm at the teams headquarter, 201 E. Lewis & Clark Parkway in Clarksville, Indiana.
The 26-year old racing phenom comes from a racing family. He’s the son of Bill Kimmel, Jr. and nephew of Frank Kimmel and has earned an impressive 13 track championships and over 90 career wins of his own. In 2006, Will Kimmel moved into the ultra competitive Super Late Model division at Salem Speedway where he became the first rookie driver to ever win a feature event in his first Super Late Model start and went on to land a Rookie of the Year designation in the Super Late Model Division. At just...

Most concept cars unveiled at major auto shows are decidedly futuristic. But one currently on exhibit at the New York Auto Show is an impressive mix of the future as envisioned in the past and a bit of the Hollywood magic of your youth. Retired New York City police officer Tony Garofalo, who goes by the name of Sgt. Pepper, has put his spare time and retirement savings to good use, creating a street-legal replica of that iconic flying car from the 1968 musical Chitty Chitty Bank Bang.
Seriously, E3 Spark Plugs fans of a certain age, you KNOW you wanted that ride. It took Garofalo five years and $100,000 of his hard earned cash to turn a 1914 Overland Coupe with a 1928 Ford engine and a few handcrafted elements like a wooden passenger compartment and copper-plated exhaust...

Let’s face it – there’s nothing fun about getting hit with a speeding ticket. But there are a few fascinating and arguably fun facts about these ubiquitous citations. Unless, of course, you live in and drive in Germany. Check out these scintillating stats …
Each day in America police officers hand out 34 million speeding tickets. That’s 93,000 a day, 3,875 per hour, 65 per minute.
Speeding tickets can be a serious revenue driver for cities, states and countries. Here in the US, they generate upward of $5.1 billion. And don’t think the government bean counters don’t notice. When a city’s economic growth tanks 10 percent, the number of speeding tickets doled out jumps an average 6.4 percent. Ergo…
Speed traps!...

Each year in America, coppers dole out some 34 million speeding tickets nationwide. That’s 93,000 per day, 3,875 per hour, 65 per minute. If the thought of those blue lights flashing in your rearview mirror are enough to give you an instant headache, we here at E3 Spark Plugs have a tip for you – Don’t speed. But also keep in mind that your choice of rides may actually reflect the likelihood of a police officer flipping on that siren or letting you slide.
According to a recent study by Insurance.com, if you drive a Lexus ES 300, chances are you’ve got a citation or two in your very near future. And if there’s a Buick Encore in your driveway, you might drive like Grandma, but your record’s probably squeaky clean.
To reach these...

The New York International Auto Show is underway at the Jacob K. Javits Center in the Big Apple. And all the talk is about the annual World Car Awards. This year, the big overall winner is the Mazda MX-5 Miata, which handily beat the Audi A4 and the Mercedes-Benz GLC-Class, as well as the Czech Skoda Superb, French Renault Kadjar and Japanese Subaru Levorg.
The top nominees in each of five car categories that also included World Luxury Car, World Performance Car, World Green Car and World Car Design of the year were chosen by a jury of 73 international automotive journalists via secret ballot and announced at the Geneva International Motor Show earlier this month. The international accounting firm KPMG tabulated the jurors' ballots and winners were announced this week in...

A Los Angeles-based maker of replicas of the iconic Batmobile got another sucker punch in a long, drawn-out legal case earlier this month – an update to a story E3 Spark Plugs first brought you last year. The ongoing battle is over whether Gotham Garage owner Mark Towle violated copyright when he built and sold replicas of the car as it appeared in the 1966 television show featuring Adam West as Batman and the 1989 movie starring Michael Keaton, racking up about $90,000 for each.
DC Comics promptly filed suit and last year, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the company, finding that the Batmobile is entitled to copyright protection of the Batmobile. Earlier this month, the US Supreme Court agreed, letting stand the lower court ruling that said the Batmobile's...

The recent Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance featured dozens of the world’s most coveted classic and antique rides. And one lucky auto buff took a piece of the show home – for a cool $9.7 million.
Deemed by the Bonham’s auctioneer to be among the most valuable of its kind ever, the 1937 Bugatti 57SC Sports Tourer. Though it lags behind the 57SC Atlantic that sold for more than $30 million in 2010 and the 1931 Bugatti Royale that held the record for its $9.8 million sale by Christies in 1987 (that’s nearly $21 million in today’s money), the going price ain’t exactly pocket change.
This particular ride was built by Belgium’s iconic Vanden Plas coachbuilders and is powered by a 200-horsepower supercharged 8-cylinder engine. Its wealthy...